Pasadena, Texas apartment complex.
An 11-year-old girl was beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death inside her family’s home in Pasadena, Texas, last weekend while her father was at work, police say.
Pasadena Police Chief Josh Bruggersaidat a news conference Tuesday that the father, Carmelo Gonzalez, repeatedly tried to check in with his daughter, Maria Gonzalez, throughout the day with increasing desperation. Ultimately, he found the girl’s body wrapped in a trash bag and stuffed inside a laundry basket underneath her own bed.
Brugger called the murder a “very brutal” and “very violent crime." An autopsy Monday showed Maria had been sexually assaulted, had blunt force trauma to the head, and died of strangulation.
Gonzalez, 32, had just arrived at work last Saturday morning when Maria began texting him that someone was knocking at the front door of their apartment, police said.
The father texted back, telling his daughter not to open the door. She agreed, according to police, telling her dad that she wouldn’t answer the door and would instead stay in bed.But after that, Gonzalez never received an update from his daughter.
“I called and called and called,” Gonzalez, 32,toldlocal television station KHOU11.
Maria’s silence prompted her father to call his brother and sister-in-law, who also lived in the same apartment complex. Around 1 p.m. local time, police said Gonzalez asked them to go check on his daughter.Maria’s aunt found the apartment door shut, but unlocked. When she entered, Chief Brugger told reporters she thought things were out of place and quickly backed out of the apartment, grabbing her husband to come check the unit with her.
Maria’s aunt and uncle could not find her as they searched the apartment, however, prompting Gonzalez to then rush home from work.“He immediately went home,” the police chief said.
Gonzalez soon found his daughter’s body under the bed.
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“At this point, we do not have a suspect,” Chief Brugger said, noting that police have no suspicions about Gonzalez.
The family is originally from Guatemala, and Maria’s mother is currently still living there, the police chief said, adding the father and daughter moved to Florida about four years ago and then moved to Austin, Texas, before settling in Pasadena, an eastern suburb of Houston.
Brugger said the child’s killing has taken a toll on a number of officers who arrived at the scene, as well as the Gonzalez family and the apartment building’s other residents.
“There’s a large Guatemalan population there in the apartment complex,” the police chief said. “It’s a fairly close community there.”
A neighbor told KHOU11 she’s now afraid to bring her own daughter to the United States.
“She was a sweet little girl,” the neighbor said. “A little angel.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go torainn.org.
source: people.com
